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📄 APA-0022 Partially Implemented

Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region (Addis Ababa Framework)

Also known as: PSC Framework

Country
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Region
Central Africa
Date signed
24 February 2013
Type
Security Arrangement
Mediator(s)
United Nations (Ban Ki-moon; Special Envoy Mary Robinson)

A regional framework of reciprocal commitments — DRC reforms in exchange for neighbours' non-interference — agreed after the first M23 rebellion, and paired with the Force Intervention Brigade that defeated M23 in 2013; its commitments eroded steadily thereafter.

Conflict Background

M23's 2012 capture of Goma, with documented external support, forced a regional reckoning. The framework bound the DRC to security-sector and governance reform, neighbours to non-interference, and the region to refuse support to armed groups.

Negotiation Context

Called the 'Framework of Hope', it paired norms with force: MONUSCO's Force Intervention Brigade militarily ended the first M23 rebellion months later — a coercive complement no subsequent phase reproduced.

Parties

  • DRC and 10 (later 13) regional states
  • African Union
  • United Nations
  • ICGLR
  • SADC

Mediators & Guarantors

Mediators
  • · United Nations (Ban Ki-moon; Special Envoy Mary Robinson)
Guarantors
  • · United Nations
  • · African Union
  • · ICGLR
  • · SADC (the 'four guarantors')

Key Provisions

DRC commitments: SSR, decentralisation, state authority in the East, reconciliation
Regional commitments: non-interference, no support to armed groups, no harbouring of war-crimes suspects
International commitments: strategic review of MONUSCO, sustained engagement
National and regional oversight mechanisms with benchmarking

Implementation

Formally alive, substantively broken since the M23 resurgence; the 2025 Washington Agreement effectively re-contracts its core bargain bilaterally between the DRC and Rwanda with US and Qatari sponsorship.

Timeline

  1. 2013-02-24
    Signed in Addis Ababa by 11 states and 4 institutions
  2. 2013-11
    M23 defeated by FARDC and the Force Intervention Brigade
  3. 2013-12-12
    Nairobi Declarations close the first M23 chapter
  4. 2021-11
    M23 resurges with renewed external backing; framework commitments visibly broken
  5. 2025
    Framework's core bargain re-litigated through Washington and Doha processes

Challenges

  • No enforcement or cost mechanism for violated commitments
  • DRC reform commitments (SSR above all) went largely unexecuted
  • Oversight meetings continued while the underlying bargain collapsed

Outcomes

  • Provided the political umbrella for the only decisive military-political defeat of M23 (2013)
  • Its benchmark architecture remains the reference for regional mutual-accountability design

Lessons

  • Norms minus enforcement equals communiqués
  • Coercive and political tracks succeed together or fail separately
  • Benchmarking without consequences becomes reporting theatre

Related CRCA Resources

References

  • Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region (2013).
  • UN Group of Experts reports on the DRC (2012–2025).